10,673 results match your criteria: "Radcliffe Department of Medicine ; University of Oxford ; Oxford[Affiliation]"

Changes in Phenotypic and Molecular Features of Naïve and Central Memory T Helper Cell Subsets following SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination.

Vaccines (Basel)

September 2024

Centre for Inflammation Research, Institute of Regeneration and Repair, University of Edinburgh, 4-5 Little France Drive, Edinburgh EH16 4UU, UK.

Molecular changes in lymphocytes following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination are incompletely understood. We hypothesized that studying the molecular (transcriptomic, epigenetic, and T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire) changes in CD4 T cells following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could inform protective mechanisms and refinement of future vaccines. We tested this hypothesis by reporting alterations in CD4 T cell subsets and molecular features of CD4 naïve and CD4 central memory (CM) subsets between the unvaccinated and vaccinated groups.

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  • The study investigates the role of brain pericytes in the microvascular no-reflow phenomenon after reopening an artery during ischemic stroke.
  • It finds that mTOR inhibition via rapamycin reduces pericyte contraction during simulated ischemia, though it doesn't significantly affect cell survival.
  • In a mouse model, rapamycin improves capillary diameter and increases the number of open capillaries following arterial recanalization, suggesting it could be a helpful treatment to enhance blood flow in the brain after a stroke.
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Background: Glucose perturbations can be detected by fasting plasma glucose (FPG), HbA, and the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). The highest yield is provided by OGTT. HbA is considered more practical.

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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychotropic prescribing: a systematic review.

BMJ Open

September 2024

Imperial Centre for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention (ICCP), Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.

Objectives: The global prevalence of mental health disorders has risen significantly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has additionally caused disruption to mental health services, leading to a shift from in-person to remote service delivery. Given its long-term impact, it has become critical to evaluate whether changes in health delivery during the pandemic have had an effect on prescribing patterns for commonly prescribed psychotropic drugs.

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  • Hyperkalemia (HK) impacts the effectiveness of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs) in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).
  • The study analyzed patients with HFrEF and either HK or a history of HK during a run-in phase designed to optimize their RAS inhibitor and MRA doses using patiromer.
  • Results showed significant increases in the use of RAS inhibitors and MRAs among patients meeting the optimization criteria, indicating that patiromer helped enhance treatment for those with HK or a history of HK.
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  • Myelodysplastic neoplasms/syndromes (MDS) are a diverse set of diseases marked by ineffective blood cell production.
  • Recent classification systems by the World Health Organization and the International Consensus have provided more detailed categorizations of MDS based on morphology and genetics.
  • A comprehensive and systematic approach is essential for the accurate diagnosis and classification of MDS, as outlined by the International Consortium for MDS (icMDS).
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  • The study investigated how well the frailty index (FI) can predict functional dependency and mortality in stroke patients after 3 years.
  • The research analyzed data from the Nor-COAST study, focusing on 609 patients with various health conditions and calculating their FI based on a 36-item score.
  • Results showed that the FI was a stronger predictor of negative outcomes than the premorbid modified Rankin scale (mRS), suggesting it may be more useful for assessing stroke prognosis.
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  • The study investigated the impact of hypotension on heart failure outcomes using data from the PARADIGM-HF trial, focusing on the differences between asymptomatic and symptomatic hypotension.
  • Out of 8,399 patients, 16% had only asymptomatic hypotension, while 11.1% experienced symptomatic hypotension, with those having symptomatic hypotension being older and having more cardiovascular issues.
  • Despite the risks associated with either type of hypotension, the heart failure medication sacubitril/valsartan showed consistent effectiveness and safety compared to enalapril across all patient groups.
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The study aimed to develop thiolated pluronic-based self-emulsifying drug delivery system (SNEDDS) targeted delivery of Rifampicin coated by arginine for enhanced drug loading, mucoadhesion, muco penetration, site-specific delivery, stabilized delivery against intracellular mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), decreased bacterial burden and production by intracellular targeting. Oleic oil, PEG 200 and Tween 80 are selected as oil, co-surfactant and surfactant based on solubilizing capacity and pseudo ternary diagram region.

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Social complexity of a fentanyl vaccine to prevent opioid overdose conference proceedings: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study conference proceedings.

Vaccine

January 2025

Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children's Hospital, 300 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA 02115, United States; Division of Infectious Disease, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 15 Francis St., Boston, MA 02115, United States; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck St, Boston, MA 02115, United States.

Article Synopsis
  • Despite significant investments in public health, the opioid crisis continues to claim hundreds of thousands of lives, worsened by the spread of fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid.
  • The National Institutes of Health's HEAL Initiative is exploring vaccine development aimed at inducing anti-fentanyl antibodies, which could potentially prevent overdose by stopping fentanyl from affecting the brain.
  • A conference at Harvard brought together experts from various fields to discuss the complex social and ethical factors surrounding the introduction of a fentanyl vaccine to better understand its potential impact and implementation challenges.
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  • Despite advancements in treatment, ischaemic heart disease remains the top cause of illness and death among women, with many being underdiagnosed and undertreated.
  • Women face unique risk factors that increase their cardiovascular risk, necessitating a tailored approach in healthcare that includes both traditional and female-specific considerations.
  • The British Cardiovascular Society aims to highlight sex-related differences in CVD management, proposing solutions to improve access to diagnosis and treatment for women and encouraging further research on gender disparities in cardiovascular health.
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Dopamine has no direct causal role in the formation of treatment expectations and placebo analgesia in humans.

PLoS Biol

September 2024

Department of Neurology, Center for Translational Neuro- and Behavioral Sciences (C-TNBS), University Medicine Essen, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.

Article Synopsis
  • Dopamine may play a role in placebo effects related to reward and learning, but its exact function is still not fully understood.
  • The study tested the impact of dopamine modulation through medication (sulpiride and L-dopa) on pain relief expectations and placebo analgesia in 168 healthy participants.
  • Results showed that these medications did not affect the development or maintenance of placebo analgesia, suggesting that dopamine may not directly influence these effects, highlighting the need for further research on the neurochemical mechanisms behind placebo responses.*
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Targeting current therapies to treat or prevent the loss of pancreatic islet β-cells in Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) may provide improved efficacy and reduce off-target effects. Current efforts to target the β-cell are limited by a lack of β-cell-specific targets and the inability to test multiple targeting moieties with the same delivery vehicle. Here, we fabricate a tailorable polycaprolactone nanocapsule (NC) in which multiple different targeting peptides can be interchangeably attached for β-cell-specific delivery.

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Introduction: When Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) struck the world in December 2019, initiatives started to investigate the efficacy of convalescent plasma, a readily available source of passive antibodies, collected from recovered patients as a therapeutic option. This was based on historical observational data from previous virus outbreaks.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted on the efficacy and safety of convalescent plasma and hyperimmune immunoglobulins for COVID-19 treatment.

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Background: The influence of atrial fibrillation (AF) and blood pressure (BP) on brain lesions and cognitive function is unclear. We aimed to investigate the association of BP with different types of brain lesions and cognitive decline in patients with AF.

Methods: Overall, 1,213 AF patients underwent standardized brain magnetic resonance imaging at baseline and after 2 years, as well as yearly neurocognitive testing.

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Early detection and prediction of non-fatal drug-related incidents and fatal overdose outbreaks using the Farrington algorithm.

Addiction

February 2025

Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, UCSD Department of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, USA.

Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of using time-series analyses to monitor both fatal and non-fatal drug overdoses as a way to spot emerging drug threats and detect fatal overdose outbreaks early.
  • Researchers analyzed county-level data from California and Florida from 2015 to 2021, using the Farrington algorithm to identify unusual increases in overdose counts alongside a standard method for comparison.
  • Findings showed that while both methods generated similar alerts for non-fatal overdoses, the benchmark method identified more alerts for fatal overdoses, with the sensitivity of detecting ongoing fatal overdose outbreaks being 66% at the county level and around 77-81% at the regional level.
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The spectrum, pathophysiology and recovery trajectory of persistent post-COVID-19 cognitive deficits are unknown, limiting our ability to develop prevention and treatment strategies. We report the 1-year cognitive, serum biomarker and neuroimaging findings from a prospective, national study of cognition in 351 COVID-19 patients who required hospitalization, compared with 2,927 normative matched controls. Cognitive deficits were global, associated with elevated brain injury markers and reduced anterior cingulate cortex volume 1 year after COVID-19.

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Background: Rheumatic fever is a non-suppurative, inflammatory sequela of group A Streptococcus pharyngitis that can occur at two to four weeks after infection. Following an episode of rheumatic fever, there is a risk of developing rheumatic heart disease (RHD) later in life that carries significant risk of morbidity and mortality. RHD remains the largest global cause of cardiovascular disease in the young (age < 25 years).

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Increased Sensitivity to Effort and Perception of Effort in People with Schizophrenia.

Schizophr Bull

September 2024

Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States.

Objective: Motivational deficits in schizophrenia are proposed to be attributable in part to abnormal effort-cost computations, calculations weighing the costs vs. the benefits of actions. Several reports have shown that people with schizophrenia display a reduced willingness to exert effort for monetary rewards when compared to controls.

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  • PI4KA-related disorder is marked by a variety of neurological and gastrointestinal issues, including spasticity, developmental challenges, and recurrent infections, with specific attention given to the impact on B-cell function and immunodeficiency in some patients. * -
  • The study involved analyzing 13 patients with PI4KA variants, revealing common traits such as B-cell deficiency and hypogammaglobulinemia, alongside significant changes in B-cell subsets and functioning due to metabolic disruptions. * -
  • Findings indicate that mutations in PI4KA lead to disturbances in lipid production and metabolic pathways in B cells, fostering mitochondrial dysfunction and abnormal immune responses, suggesting a critical role of PI4KA in B-cell differentiation and health. *
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  • Non-polio enteroviruses (NPEV) are viruses that can cause serious illness around the world.
  • Scientists are studying blood samples to learn about how these viruses have spread in the past and what might happen in the future.
  • A recent test with twelve labs showed that there are big differences in how they measure NPEV antibodies, which means we need better standard rules for testing them.
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Importance: Red blood cell (RBC) transfusions are frequently administered to preterm infants born before 32 weeks of gestation in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Two randomized clinical trials (Effects of Transfusion Thresholds on Neurocognitive Outcomes of Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants [ETTNO] and Transfusion of Prematures [TOP]) found that liberal RBC transfusion thresholds are nonsuperior to restrictive thresholds, but the extent to which these results have been integrated into clinical practice since publication in 2020 is unknown.

Objective: To describe neonatal RBC transfusion practice in Europe.

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Deep Learning Model of Diastolic Dysfunction Risk Stratifies the Progression of Early-Stage Aortic Stenosis.

JACC Cardiovasc Imaging

September 2024

Division of Cardiovascular Diseases and Hypertension, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. Electronic address:

Article Synopsis
  • The study explores how a deep learning model can predict the risk of developing aortic stenosis (AS) from the early stage of aortic valve sclerosis by assessing diastolic dysfunction (DD).
  • Researchers evaluated data from 898 participants in the ARIC cohort and validated their findings in two other groups, showing a significant correlation between high DD risk and the development of AS or related health interventions.
  • The results indicate that using deep learning to measure DD effectively stratifies risk in patients, providing a better understanding of how AS progresses.
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